


Such Lost Creatures

by Risilliance



Series: There was an Idea [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Clint's the only one who gets what's going on, Everyone is angry about different things, Gen, Hydra (Marvel), Interrogation, Interview, Literally no one is going to want to read this, No one knows who this chick is, Post-Avengers (2012), Pre-Iron Man 3, SHIELD, but im so sick of this sitting in my files, so im posting it to make me feel like im doing something with my life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-08
Updated: 2014-09-07
Packaged: 2018-02-12 07:35:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2101083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Risilliance/pseuds/Risilliance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Someone once told me that if you don't like the way the game is playing out, you rearrange the board. I've also been told that you're not supposed to play chess that way, but I don't really give a damn."</p><p>---</p><p>The key players of the Battle of New York are interviewed/interrogated one more time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. It's a Terrible Privilege - Stark.1

It makes sense that the orders said to start with him. After all, he's the celebrity, the instigator, the big man in the bigger suit of armor. He's the wild card. But then, they all are, caught in a world that could never be ready for them. She has read the files. She has seen the footage, as have her superiors, and they all have questions. She's just the one that gets to ask them.

She supposes that the dim lighting and the large mirror on the wall are supposed to dwarf his presence. Instead, he is magnified. He fills the room. He is the room. He has found his mountain and he has made himself king. It was long past the time to dethrone him.

The interrogator, a woman, dark haired, stern faced, lithe and surely dangerous, closes the door behind her. It's not a typical case. She is not a typical interrogator. On some level, she thinks, he knows this.

As she steps over to the table - slow strides, no rush - she looks over him. She lets a small bit of disapproval color her face as her eyes skirt over his feet, stacked neatly, one on top of the other on the cold, gray table. She sits down and addresses him, "Mr. Stark."

His eyes snap to hers, and he flashes a quick smile, almost a smirk. It dies on his face in the next instant. "Present," he says, voice full of confidence, false confidence, in the face of the unknown. She thinks he is struggling to stay relaxed, and that he is making an admirable attempt. Had she been a typical interrogator, she might not have noticed. But she wasn't, and she did. It rang clearly in his posture, laid back, too laid back, arms behind his head, wearing jeans and a Black Sabbath T-shirt, one that she immediately recognized from the footage. He's trying to make some sort of statement. He's trying, and he's trying too hard.

She can almost see the annoyed exhaustion on his face this morning, the defeat on his shoulders as he tried on one suit, then another, and yet another, before finally deciding to play it cool, play it causal, play on the minefield.

"I assume you know why you're here today."

"Because you think I'm a threat." The humor is gone, the atmosphere has shifted, and his feet are suddenly gone from the table as he leans closer to it. He stares at her, daring her to meet his gaze and tell him otherwise. She does neither of these things.

The ark reactor in his chest casts a lucid blue light over the files she is sifting through. "Are you? A threat?" He does not give an answer, but she was not expecting one. Instead, she finds the page she wants, a blurry picture of the contraption on the roof of Stark Tower, the one that fired the portal. "Mr. Stark, can you identify this for me?"

"That's a margarita mixer, right? Where was this taken? You know, I'm missing mine."

"No, Mr. Stark. I wasn't aware," came the woman's icy voice. "The machine in question is believed to be the device that allowed the hostiles to enter. I need to know if you have ever seen it before."

He takes a quick glance at the photo, looks up. "Can't say that I have...Wait! It was in that Shia LaBeof movie, right? The one with the yellow Mustang."

"It was found on the rooftop of Stark Tower."

"Really? Huh. I better let my cleaning staff know that they're doing a shit job. The amount I pay them, you'd think-"

"Mr. Stark, did you have any part in the opening of the portal?"

His gaze hardens slightly for a fleeting second. She notes this and files it away in her mind for future use. "I didn't build it, if that's what you mean."

"That's not the question I was asking."

"Then why don't you ask the question that's really bothering you. Ask me if I brought that invasion here. Ask me if I sat on the sidelines and watched New York burn."

"That's not the question I was asking," she repeats.

"But wasn't it? Aren't you trying to pin the invasion on me?"

A cold tension, but she breaks it. "Let's start over. I will ask you a question, you will give me a relevant answer."

He pauses, considers, thinks of a better option. "Why am I here?"

"I thought you already answered that."

"Humor me," he challenges. “I've already done the Q and A session before. Several times, in fact. What kind of game are you playing?”

Diplomatic and composed, she gives him his answer. "I'm here to debrief the men and women directly involved with the incident concerning a possible alien invasion."

"Possible?" he scoffs. "Possible? Do you really think there's even a shred of a chance that New York didn't happen? Do you really think that, after everything that's been on the news, you can just convince people that everything was a lie?”

"That is not the underlying goal. Now, Mr. Stark, if you'd please cooperate, I'm sure we can arrive at a conclusion that we both find fitting. I'm sure you're very concerned about your image and-"

"No. No, stop talking. Can you just, I don't know, shut up for a second? This had nothing to do with my image. I wasn't even supposed to be involved. Let me just-" He sighs then, a great and heavy sigh of a man starting to show his age. His hands go through his hair and he tugs repeatedly, as if searching for some certain train of thought and failing to grasp at it. But when he looks up, he is composed once more.

"Let's get one thing straight." He says, and she thinks she can see the honesty in his words as they trip over his tongue and spill out onto the table between them. "I'm volatile. I'm self-obsessed. And you're right. I have an image to keep up. But the world was in trouble, and who was I to argue if some half-assed intelligence agency wanted me to save it. I needed a hobby anyway, and, yeah, I wanted to show SHIELD that they were wrong about me. I'm not a joiner. I specialize in weapons - or I used to. But someone had to show these guys how to point a smoking gun and walk away. And if I was going to do it, then you sure as hell can bet that AC/DC was going to be playing in the background.

"I'm not going to bore you with the details of what happened at my science convention. You've probably heard the stories anyway. You know, the one that starts with "Mad Scientists Infiltrate Convention" and ends with "Dashing, Armored Hero Saves the Day." Point is, I saved the city - you're welcome, by the way - and right after that, SHIELD told me that they didn't want me. Something about my ego, my teamwork skills, or lack thereof. So I said, " _whatever_ ," and started working on Stark Tower. I would just like to point out here that I did not intend for Stark Tower to be the point of origin for an enemy portal...or, any sort of portal, actually. It's a prototype for self sustaining energy. That's all. Are you writing that down? Yes? Good? Good.

"I just...I understand the concept of a nuclear deterrent. In fact, I probably used those words to describe the Iron Man suit at one hearing or another. It's an attractive idea, until you actually have it, and then everything blows up in your face in a power grab. I understood that after Ivan attacked me in New York. Hell, I understood that when Obadiah…"

She prompts him as he falters. "When Obadiah…?"

"Never mind that. Besides, I'm sure you know the story anyway. Probably have it in some file locked away somewhere. Transported by an armored vehicle. Probably got most of it from tapping my phones."

"I think you have the wrong idea about us."

"No, I'm definitely right. Also, I'm fairly certain that I told you to shut up about...three minutes ago?" He pauses a moment in a slight dare to say something - anything - about his attitude. When she refrains, he continues.

"So since then, I've been working on my image, brushing up on my people skills. I built a self sustaining building. They're normally crowd pleasers, so, hey, why not? Do you know how many points Stark Industries dropped when I stopped making weapons? Like, a billion. Do you know how many points we got back once I put on the suit and started doing your job? At least double that. Not to mention the clean energy game. The Ark Reactor, the first one back in California, that was a publicity stunt. That was to shut up the hippies, neutralize the public. And look what came of it. Now I won't have to pay an electricity bill for the next year. Point is, I was your Nuclear Deterrent, even if I didn't mean to be. I was your wonder boy. And, yeah, maybe I had a few too many beers a few too many times. And maybe my birthday party...yeah, that was a complete mess. But who among us isn't flawed?"

"And you are mentioning your previous errors because…?"

"Because I...I don't actually know. I tend to get off topic sometimes. Pepper says it's a defense mechanism but I always thought humor was-"

"Mr. Stark!"

He closes his mouth, shakes his head, and says, "Right. Nuclear Deterrent. Fury. Phase Two.” Another pause, and he starts again.

"There's been several allegations that I knew about and even worked on the SHIELD weapon prototypes. That's complete bullshit. Stark Industries doesn't make weapons anymore. I thought I made that clear after I blew up the last Jericho. Why else do you think I'm playing -and winning- the energy game? It was something else to pass the time. After the convention, I stayed out of SHIELD. I had hoped that they would stay away from me. Obviously, that never happened.

"Coulson was the one who called me in. That's Agent Phil Coulson, C-O-U-L-S-O-N. Showed up, unannounced with a big fat digital file for me to look into. Took my Campaign, too. But, whatever, I did my homework, got the coordinates for Germany, and dropped in. Just in time, although Cap won't tell it like that. Sure, it wasn't completely smooth. Goldilocks had to swoop in, rescue his princess, and brawl it out with me and Steve in the middle of the Enchanted Forest. I guess Granny's house wasn't open. And don't get me started with Katniss and the Helicarrier. I still have nightmares about that engine. Probably should forward some redesigns toward Fury. Actually...that's not a bad idea.... But do you want to know the one thing that keeps me up at night, the one thought that keeps running through my head after everything went down, after everything we saved?

"It wasn't worth it."

"Can you be more specific, Mr. Stark?"

His gaze is lost somewhere, lost in thought, lost in the events that he couldn't change, lost in his largely uninterrupted recount of the events and their consequences. " _What_?" He replies, a bit confused, slightly hostile.

She cuts him a break. She repeats the question again, a juxtaposition of the gentle and the stern. She didn't want to break him. That wasn't her underlying goal. She needed answers, and while his carnage was not her responsibility, she almost felt something short of sympathy for him. Pity, perhaps. "Can you be more specific?" She repeats. "What wasn't worth it? What was the cost? My records show that the Helicarrier was fixed before it hit the ground. You and your teammates made it out of this ordeal alive. What wasn't worth it, Mr. Stark? What is it that keeps you awake at night?"

He looks at her as if he was trying to see through her, trying to find her angle in all of this, because surely there was one. He knows she's supposed to ask the tough questions, supposed to find the weak link in his story, if there were any to be found. But he didn't think she'd go this far. He didn't think she'd resort to this kind of game.

"Your telling me that your records have _nothing_ on him?"

"Who, Mr. Stark?"

_"Agent. Fucking. Phil. Coulson."_

 


	2. Until Such Time as the World Ends - Fury.1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Someone once told me that if you don't like the way the game is playing out, you rearrange the board. I've also been told that you're not supposed to play chess that way, but I don't really give a damn."

"Director Fury."

He is stoic, ever watchful, intimidating, even, and she wonders how this session will go, how long it will take, how difficult it will be. She wonders how much information he will withhold and what lengths she will have to go to uncover it. She wonders if he will live up to the legend.

"Evening," is his response, and she is lead to believe that this will not go well. "Have a seat." He gestures good-naturedly to her usual spot, and she has no choice but to obey. Even though she is supposedly the one with all of the power, the Director of SHIELD somehow finds a way to turn the tables. The magnitude of her job suddenly washes over her. She is interrogating Nick Fury.

The Director in question sees her vacant expression before she can shake it off in the next moment. He also knows that she is not afraid. Neither is he.

"I am quite certain you know why you're here today."

"I am indeed." The Director speaks slowly, deliberately, and does not hesitate to cut down the bush that she is beating around. "You want to know about the Avengers Initiative."

She nods. "There are many things I would like to know about. Yes, the Avengers Initiative is one of them."

"I'll tell you the whole story, if that's what you want to hear."

The thoughts whirring in her mind come to a halt. Her job could never be this easy, could it? "Very well, Director. Please proceed." Please.

Director Fury takes a deep breath as he pinpoints the exact timeline he wants to follow. And then he starts, careful, calculating, and very deliberate, always deliberate. As she listens to his story, she wonders how many times he had rehearsed the same words, over and over.

"There's been a lot of critics condemning my actions in the days and moments leading up to the Battle of New York. There's been a lot of speculation on the team I put together and the way in which I put them together. There's been whispers of the programs we're running, leaks on phase two, accusations at every corner. The truth is that this knowledge was never supposed to be released to the public until it had to be. If I had it my way, that time would have never come. And yet, here I am, defending myself and the actions I took to save a city…to save a world.

"I can't say where the idea was born or who thought of it first. But I remember the nods of agreement. I remember asking to take over the program. I remember calculating the possibilities. I remember the blip in the radar that resulted in a supposedly failed training exercise, the hammer that struck down the would-be king. I remember moving the chess pieces to suit my needs. And then the idea was put in motion, with two prospective members operating under the same roof.

"Things went to hell.

"Romanoff didn't know she was being considered. Some people question her background, but I shared none of their reservations about placing her on the team. She's done more for this agency than most people's clearance level would allow them to know. I've worked with her closely before. I would do it again. For a long time, she was kept in the dark about the Avengers Initiative. Everyone was. It was my own personal best kept secret, but eventually, it had to be shared, and if you want to spread a secret, you tell it to a spy. She knew something of what she was getting into when she was sent undercover at Stark's company, but she didn't understand the magnitude of it quite yet.

"Stark...he might have known more about it, had he not been so preoccupied with himself. I paid him a visit not long after the Los Angeles incident, gave him a vague description of the world he was getting himself into. But he didn't want to hear it, thought he was better off solo. Meanwhile, he was dying, something of a minor inconvenience. I sent Romanoff in to diffuse the situation and give me a profile. In the end, Iron Man was accepted into the program, under the condition that Tony Stark would not be the man wearing the suit. As luck would have it, the world had other ideas, and personality profiles were a luxury that time would not allow us to afford.

"Captain Steve Rogers was an unexpected -though thoroughly welcome- development. To tell you the truth, I didn't know much about him until we pulled him out of the ice. A long gone super soldier is hardly at the top of the to do list for a man with my schedule. The serum, I knew of. The man, I did not. I fixed that quickly, and put him on the roster as soon as I finished reading his file. We called on him when we needed him. He showed up, as we knew he would. We needed his experience. The team needed his leadership. Stark needed him as a counter balance. Was Rogers thrilled about our involvement with the Tesseract? No. That's _exactly_ why we needed him.

"We had been tracking Doctor Bruce Banner's location since Harlem. He wanted to be left alone, and so we gave him the illusion of solitude, of independence from a world that wanted to use him as a weapon. I could not, in good conscience, let him off of our radar, but we didn't intervene until we had to. Most people would have qualms about bringing the Hulk on board a flying ship. Most people aren't the Director of SHIELD. And while you could argue that his presence gave us some problems, you could also argue that everything happened exactly as it needed to.

"Thor Odinson was a variable. He had been a variable ever since he and his hammer dropped out of the sky. We weren't sure we were ever going to see him again after New Mexico. He was unexpected. So was his brother. The Avengers Initiative was not built around protecting against a single threat. It was built with all threats in mind. Because of this, because of the urgency in which this team fell together, we could not have had a set plan in place. If you had told me all those months ago that SHIELD would have to defend against a blood feud between two Norse _gods_ , I would have locked you up myself. Thrown the key in the arctic. The world is funny like that. The world also needs to be thankful that Thor was grounded enough to fight on our side. Thor has proven to be a strong ally. I am confident that he will continue to be one in the future.

"Barton, of course, was never supposed to be taken by Loki. He almost refused to watch over the Tesseract in want of an assignment that would play better with his skill set. Kept telling me that he was bored. Kept saying he wanted to shoot something. In the end, he shot me. But I needed him, both as an extra set of eyes from SHIELD, and as one half of the partnership he formed with Romanoff. If nothing else, I knew those two would work together. The rest of the team was a gamble. Circumstance would play a key role.

"Someone once told me that if you don't like the way the game is playing out, you rearrange the board. I've also been told that you're not supposed to play chess that way, but I don't really give a damn. I had the players I needed. I just needed to bring them together, make a group of extraordinary people into a team. Against all odds, the Avengers became exactly that. They saved New York. They saved our world."

He finishes his monologue, clearly believing that that would be all that was required of him. After all, he is the Director of SHIELD. He has things to do and places to be and could hardly spend the afternoon justifying the precautions he took. The interrogator, however, has other ideas, and doesn't look nearly as impressed as she should.

She looks over the notes that she made, jots down a few more with a flourish of her pen. Yes, this information is good, but it isn't anything that she couldn't have figured out herself. She needs more than the tagline of a backstory. She needs the playbook, cover to cover.

"Thank you for that, Director. I do have a few questions, though." Her voice is laced with sugar and spice and the sly hope that he will continue to be cooperative. "Let's backtrack here. I need to know about the weapon prototypes."

"There's not much to tell. Not much I can tell."

"Right. I understand that. But the fact remains that if you hadn't been making them, the invasion would never have come."

He is silent for a moment, thinking his way out of the box she's trying to stuff him in. "I'm having trouble deciding how, exactly, you came to that conclusion."

"The Tesseract," She says simply. "If you had not been using it, Loki would never have come."

"Is that the way you see it?" He answers, bemused, in a commanding but gentle sort of tone that only the Director could use. "Then I guess you haven't talked to Thor yet. Haven't talked to Barton, either."

"I'm the one asking the questions, Director." The atmosphere shifts ever so subtly in precisely the way that she wants it to. She's struggling to take control away from him. And yet, it still isn't enough.

"That's fine." There's a sort of twitch playing at his mouth, a smirk he is repressing, and she finds it just short of infuriating. "All I meant to say is that I don't think you have the full story yet."

"Enlighten me." She looks down at her file and quotes a passage from it. "' _The Tesseract was the doorway through which the hostile, Loki, stepped into the compound_.'" She looks back at the Director. "And yet, you're saying that Loki would have come regardless."

"That, I am. The Tesseract was Loki's mean to an end. I said before that the fight he brought was fueled by a blood feud. He had unfinished business with Thor, who had previously placed this world under his personal protection. Loki's attack on earth was a personal attack against his brother."

"Are you forgetting about the army he led through the skyline?"

"Asgardian family fights are a bit different than ours." And then he stops trying to hide his smirk. He wears it proudly.

"Right...but, you see, I'm not currently interrogating Thor. I'm interrogating you, Director. So I'm not interested in this Asgardian Soap Opera you're trying to sell me. I want to know how you plan to justify your own mistakes. Starting with the Tesseract." She practically snarls her last words at him, mentally chiding herself immediately after they leave her mouth. This was not the time.

The levity in the Director's voice dissolves, his face serious once more, and she wonders how long it will be before she has him pinned against his own barricades. "Look, the Tesseract was the center of an operation dedicated to a inter-galactic defense plan. I've gone over this before."

"Not with me. I have a direct quote here from Captain Rogers. ' _You should have left it in the ocean._ ' Tell me, how did he react when he found out that you were conducting experiments on it?"

"Are you suggesting that SHIELD needed Rogers' personal permission to protect the world from intergalactic invasions? _Wars_?"

"I'm suggesting that, ethically speaking, your judgment is cloudy at best." Her voice rises a bit, gains a finer edge, and she decides that she is done playing nice for now, done waiting for him to give her what she wanted. She needs to rattle him, needs to shake the foundation he has rooted himself in, needs him to understand that he is not in control anymore. And so she fires the shots, rapidly, unforgiving.

"You justify the near downfall of the Helicarrier with the narrow save of New York. You justify the doorway you unlocked for the hostiles with a promise that they would have entered this atmosphere regardless. You justify the placement of Anthony Stark on your team, a man who was profiled and judged not to be fit for the position, with a deadline that you were unable to meet. Manhattan was ordered to be destroyed by the very organization that vowed to protect it. The weapons that SHIELD saw fit to manufacture are the clear reason that this invasion was brought upon this world, this Nation, New York in particular, and yet you show no remorse for your actions. It is your _job_ , Director, to oversee the protection of this country. How can you feel confident in repeatedly justifying your mistakes with the end results?"

"Easy. I have seen the end results."

The direction of this conversation should be predictable to her, painfully so, and had she seen the game of chess as it unfolded, she would know. But she is not expecting the game, can not see the moves he is making and the strategy he employs. He's good. He's too good. Untouchable, almost. And that is why, when the interrogator asks the question he knows is coming, he has an answer at the ready.

"May I remind you, Director, that you were not the one to carry the warhead on your back and guide it into enemy territory?"

"Of course not. That was Stark," He says simply, but his eye says something else.

_Check._

 

 

 


End file.
